Watchable Trippy Movies

[dsm]

In 1966, when I was four, the first trippy movie I ever saw was 'The Wizzard of Oz.' Compared to the movies they've been making for kids for the last 20 years it's pretty tame, but none the less. It freaked me out for sure, with those flying monkeys, a Wicked Witch to beat ALL wicked witches, the midgets with the funky voices (I'd never seen a little person before), and everything else.

Here are some trippy (or semi-trippy) movies that I saw by the age of ten, I loved them all.

(2) The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)

(3) The Yellow Submarine (1968) Saw at Drive In.

(4) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Saw at Drive In.

(5) Willy Wanka and the.. (1971) Walk-In theater.

(6) Great Expectations (1946) only version worth watching IMO.

(7) The Boy with Green Hair (1948)

(8) The Hospital (1971) George C. Scott, Drive In.

(9) Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) Saw at Drive In.

[More recent movies]

Lost Highway (1997) David Lynch

Smoke Signals (1998)

Blue Velvet (1986)

3 Women (1977) Altman

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Dead Man (1996) Johnny Depp

The Stoned Age (1994) The movie 'Dazed and Confuzed' is the way people fondly remembered the 1970's, 'The Stoned Age' represents the way it was. Not that trippy of a movie though, probably doesn't belong on the list, but what-the-hey.

Eraserhead (1977) This movie is a little too trippy for my taste, but okay to watch once.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Saw at a Walk-In in 1978 or so, after it had already become a cult classic (got pummeled with rice and whatnot, total surprise, lots of fun).

There are many people (like my dad) who can't stand movies that are even slightly weird, movies like:

The Accidental Tourist (1988)

Raising Arizona (1987)

Ed Wood (1994)

Memento (2000)

Natural Born Killers (1994) This one is more than slightly weird

-dsm

[ThaSaltCracka]

if you like weird movies you should watch:
eXisteze(sp)
Dark City
13th floor

those were some damn weird movies. I think fear and loathing is probably the weirdest damn movie ever. Followed by 2001. You forgot Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now.

[Phat Mack]

There are some French movies of this type that I like: Diva, City of Lost Children, Delicatessin. They seem to use the same actors, so I assumed they a related in some way.

[ACPlayer]

TrainSpotting for a great and weird movie.

[Victor]

at once:
the weirdest movie.
the scariest movie.
the most depraved movie.
the best antidrug movie.

i suggest it to all, but it is very hard to stomach and i never want to watch it again.

[Rushmore]

A damned fine film. Excellent junkie stuff.

Aaronovsky's first film, Pi, certainly belongs on the list.

[Rushmore]

You mention Eraserhead. This is definitive.

You fail to mention Roman Polanski's Repulsion, which is more than a little trippy, believe me.

[Sooga]

[ QUOTE ]


Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)



[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what the appeal to this movie is, but this film is simply unwatchable.

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]


Quote:
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)




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I don't know what the appeal to this movie is, but this film is simply unwatchable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I loved the book. I actually thought the biggest problem with the movie was the audio. I mean, I realize Thompson is a serious mumbler, but does that mean he has to sound like he's underwater?

[andyfox]

All is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose, but you lose some credibility when you say that Accidental Tourist and N.B.K. are watchable. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

You've got a couple of Lynch movies on your list. I would add Elephant Man.

Fargo would top my list, followed closely by The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and The Wizard of Oz.

Also, some movies I loved originally I now find unwatchable, probably because I'm now an old fart. I remember thinking Last Tango in Paris was the greatest thing I ever saw. Saw it again recently and couldn't make it through to the end. Same with 2001.

[HDPM]

I thought NBK was watchable. Then again, I was laughing through it while people walked out. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[scotnt73]

monty python-holy grail

[Wad]

Pink Floyd: The Wall

[andyfox]

A lot of the great films noir from the '40s and '50s would seem to fit the bill. The Third Man is among my favorites. Great story (by Graham Greene), great music (a zither, of all things), lots of weird camera angles, great chase ending, and Orson Welles at his sinister best.

[M2d]

was mulholland drive not trippy or not watchable? I thought it was both (moreso upon each subsequent viewing)
plus, the laura elena herring/naomi watts scenes were both trippy and watchable in their own right.

[Slacker13]

How about Altered States (1980) ?

[WTF]

Harold and Maude

[John Cole]

I think I had seen The Wizard of Oz nearly fifteen times before I knew that it was in color. I'm surprised that you'd mention The Boy with the Green Hair. I saw this as a kid, too; today, we'd see it very differently. Saw The Miracle Worker the other night, and I was amazed at how much of it I had forgotten since I had seen it when it first came out. There are some very scary, nightmarish scenes in which Ann Sullivan recalls her own childhood, particulary the death of her brother. Others from childhood include The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger) and The Bride of Frankenstein.

Anyway, for adults, I recommend:

Vertigo

El Topo and Santa Sangre by Jorodowski (sp?)

Solaris and Stalker by Tarkovsky

The Phantom of Liberty, Viridiana, That Obscure Object of Desire by Bunuel

On the Top of the Whale by Raul Ruiz (on second thought, even though I've watched this a dozen times, most will find it unwatchable)

Suspiria by Dario Argento (May be the best horror movie of all time)

Ugetsu by Mizoguchi is the finest Japanese horror film of all time. I recently watched Onibaba and Kwaidan, and though both are very good, they pale in comparison to this remarkable movie. And, it is completely watchable.

The Night of the Hunter also fits your category, and it is a great movie. The shot of Shelly Winters in the car at the bottom of the river will last with you forever. We don't even really question whether or not that's seaweed next to her floating hair.

Here's the plot: an entomologist is tricked into going down into a sand pit to spend the night. When the ladder is pulled away, he must, along with the woman in the hut where he takes shelter, shovel sand continuously. This Japanese film is dreamlike and erotic. Woman in the Dunes goes to the top of the list. Here's a link to one review: Woman in the Dunes (http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/28/womaninthedunes.html)

[Rushmore]

You're right about Woman In The Dunes.

Asd you have mentioned the Japanese, credit them also with Tetsuo, The Iron Man. Watchable? I think so. Hysterical in places ("Moshi moshi? Moshi moshi. Moshi Moshi? Moshi moshi."), but actually quite disturbing in others.

[andyfox]

"The Night of the Hunter also fits your category, and it is a great movie. The shot of Shelly Winters in the car at the bottom of the river will last with you forever. We don't even really question whether or not that's seaweed next to her floating hair."

I've always felt that the final scene of The Piano was taken from that scene in The Night of the Hunter. And that Christopher Walken's screen persona is based on Robert Mitchum's in that movie.

The scene where Ann Sullivan forces Helen to eat with silverware rather than her hands in The Miracle Worker is possibly the greatest "fight" scene in movies.

It appears the new Stepford Wives may join this category. Anything with Glenn Close, Bette Middler, and Mr. Walken in it has to be, by definition, trippy. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[andyfox]

Loved it when I saw it, I imagine I couldn't watch it now.

[sfer]

I just watched it on 35mm for the first time. What a treat. For all of the things everyone justifiably adores about The Third Man I always think about how great Joseph Cotten is and his resignation when he lights up his cigarette during the closing shot.

[mosta]

[ QUOTE ]
You're right about Woman In The Dunes.



[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, it's really "deep"--like Camus! The photography is rather cool, sure, but even that wears and begins to smell of affectation. I am still trying to catch his Gaudi documentary, though.

Regarding Delicatessen and City of Lost Children (a disappointment, I thought)--Jeunet and Caro. Also, Amelie.

Mizoguchi?--one of many things I've walked out of at the PFA, along with Bresson (!!), Antonioni, Kurosawa, Felini (actually I sleep through Felini, not walk out--must have happened half a dozen times), Tarkovsky (my friend argues that sitting through two to three hours of hell is part of the experience for the sublime couple minutes that always turn up (see Rublev)). And I've always felt like I was something of a cineaste. Go figure. But, okay, I'll try another Mizoguchi.

[dsm]

I went and rented The Thirteenth Floor (1999) yesterday, eXisteZe (1999) was not in so I'll try back later.

The 13th Floor was sort of like "Total Recall" meets "The Matrix" for me. I looked around for a review, here's a funny little snippet:


[ QUOTE ]
There's one scene where the two junior scientists (D'Onofrio & Bierko) are talking about the creator's intentions. One says something like, "He went back to have sex." The other one has an astonished, disillusioned look on his face. Then I thought to myself, "Hey dude! Why else would you build this thing?" I think that's the smartest thing he could have done. Any other application pales in significance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the recommendations, -dsm

[dsm]

I rented a few movies that were recommended in this thread, including "Delicatessen" (1991)(a dark black comedy). That was one bizarre film! This movie is gonna be way-over-the-top weird for most people, I sure don't know anybody personally who I'd recommed it to. Fine performances though, by an excellent cast. I'll check out the other two you recommend, since you say they include the same cast.

Thanks, -dsm

[dsm]

[ QUOTE ]
TrainSpotting for a great and weird movie.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure it comes on cable from time to time, I'll check it out, thanks.

-dsm

[andyfox]

When I first watched Welles's movies, I couldn't understand what he saw in Cotten. I knew they knew each other from Welles's radio and theater days. Then, upon subsequent viewings, you realize just how good Cotten was, without the flamboyance of Welles or some of the others in Welles's coterie. Yes, that final scene when she walks by him without looking back is something, with that long line of lonely trees.

BTW, the BFI Film Classics book about The Third Man, written by Rob White, is very good. The studio orginally wanted Cary Grant and Noel Coward to play the leads.

[Roy Munson]

I neglected to read the entire thread so this may have been mentioned already.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure is trippy. But, so are most Tim Burton films.

[Roy Munson]

This is definitely one that falls into the "love the book, hate the movie" category.

[Roy Munson]

The scene that you speak of was one of the most watchable in recent memory.

[John Cole]

Hated it when I saw it, but I was not young then. (Rick might tell you I never was.) Perhaps this explains it. Of course, you need to distinguish between "trippy" and "just plain old weird." Harold and Maude seems weird; Sargasso Manuscript trippy.

[andyfox]

"He has his hands in his pocket as he watches her once more, walking down the road at her own steady pace. She faces resolutely forward. As she draws level, I can still wonder if she will turn to Holly and say something to him. But she does not. She cannot spare even a glance. She only moves on into her own uncertain future, until she is beyond the camera's sight, beyond all sight.

Holly takes out a cigarette and strikes a match. The screen begins to fade to black and--for an instant--only we notice how he seems, as in a mottled old photograph, to be etched forever into the image, with the light leaving it, a mere shadow of a man."

-from the BFI book by Rob White

[dsm]

I rented this yesterday, but when I popped it in late last night, it stated it was the "Edited Version." I struggled briefly with whether or not to watch it, then I caved ($4.25 down the tubes? /images/graemlins/grin.gif).

This movie was fairly intense (and I'm assuming it was much more so in its original, un-edited state). Ellen Burstyn (the mother in "The Exorcist"), what can I say? That was some performance she gave. I think she alone makes this a must see.

That refrigerator scared the sh** out of me! I loved when Burstyn goes to the doctor for a refill (she's taking a bunch of diet pills that are causing her some freaky hallucinations). The doctor's mind is thoroughly elsewhere, then...with his back turned to her he asks, "So how've you been doing?" She hesitates, then mutters, "Well...there's my refrigerator." Then her head instantly turns 45° towards the camera lens with a high-speed SNAP, very close up. Perfect. LMAO

I was reading a review and some guy said:

[ QUOTE ]
My only real quibbles with the movie have to do with certain instances of the split-screen and jump-cut techniques, which struck me as somewhat gimmicky and repetitious

[/ QUOTE ]

This technique was used every time they shot-up. I loved it because it enables the viewer to really get a feel for just how often they were getting high, this without having to spend A LOT of time going through the process of watching them preparing the stuff, tying off their arms, etc...

Without the technique, the actors would have had to exaggerate the look of being high, so that the viewer would realize they WERE high all the time. Using the technique it's implied.

Lastly, could you tell me some of the parts of the movie that you would guess were edited out? First of all the nudity was pretty mild, and the goriest thing they showed was probably the star junky's arm being so infected from shooting up in the same spot every time.

Thanks, dsm

[dsm]

[ QUOTE ]
You fail to mention Roman Polanski's "Repulsion"

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never seen this movie. The video shop I went to yesterday has the movie, but it was checked out. I'll check it out next week.

Thanks, dsm

[dsm]

[ QUOTE ]
monty python-holy grail

[/ QUOTE ]

Seen it many times, love it. Their t.v. series was pretty freaky a lot of the time too.

-dsm

[dsm]

[ QUOTE ]
A lot of the great films noir from the '40s and '50s would seem to fit the bill. "The Third Man" is among my favorites

[/ QUOTE ]

I went to Eddie Brandt's yesterday and rented four films recommended in this thread with "The Third Man" (1949) being one of them. Excellent! Hard not to like Joseph Cotten. Loved him in "Citizen Cane" (1941).

The video starts with a short discussion by Peter Bogdanovich. He says that this is the best of director Carol Reed's most admired films from that era. The others being "The Fallen Idol" (1948), and "Odd Man Out" (1947).

Then at the end of the film they provide several examples of the 22,000 digital repairs they made to the film (before and after shots), very interesting. Finally they show Anton Karas playing the main song from the movie on an odd and beautiful-sounding instrument called a zither.

Photo of a Zither (http://www32.brinkster.com/harpsite/images/wcz.jpg)

Thanks, dsm

[ThaSaltCracka]

dude, eXistenZe is one weird movie, I recommend it more than Thirteenth Floor, its definitely a better flick. Can't go wrong with Jude Law!

[dsm]

[ QUOTE ]
How about Altered States (1980)?

[/ QUOTE ]


Yes, a strange movie. Pretty much every movie William Hurt is in, he'll give it a stange quality. Even in a fairly mainstream movie like "Broadcast News" (1987), he can't help but come off as one strange dude! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

-dsm

[dsm]

Harold and Maude (1971), I can't believe I forgot this movie! Loved it, saw it for the first time in some Los Angeles theater playing vitage flicks in the early 1980s, it was playing second banana to "2001: a Space Odyssey."

-dsm

[dsm]

I just found this movie confusing (maybe I'm just too stupid to get it, which is a real possibility). I need to watch it again, but there's no way I'll pay to rent it. I'll wait for it to pop-up on cable. There are a few movies I found confusing the first time through, and then saw it again and liked it. "Mission: Impossible" (1996) with Tom Cruise is an example. Now I consider it very watchable.

-dsm

[M2d]

it's a weird japanese flick about a lady who runs a noodle shop. her life's quest is to make the perfect bowl of noodles, which necessitates he developing the perfect broth.

sounds kinda stupid, and it is, but it draws the viewer in and won't let go.

[Mano]

Wild at heart
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Paint your wagon

[nicky g]

Odd Man Out is pretty good (not in the class of the Third Man, although i'd rather watch Odd Man Out on most given days). James Mason is just the king of everything.

[Phat Mack]

I hadn't thought about Woman in the Dunes in decades, glad to hear it's available on DVD. From a novel by Kobo Abe, a writer worth checking out. He started out like Vonnegut: a writer of pulp SF who eventually was taken seriously. I see some of his translated stuff once in a while in used book stores. If you run across any (with the possible exception of Inter-Ice Age 4), give him a read. The book Woman in the Dunes is especially worth reading for fans of the movie...slightly different, heh heh.

[ArchAngel71857]

not quite sure what qualifies as a "trippy movie," but

12 monkeys
Fifth Element (I hear this syncs up to Radiohead (k4 ?) but then I hear a lot syncs to radiohead).
Blade Runner
John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness and Prince of Darkness
Vanilla Sky
Pi

-AA

[TJSWAN]

Repo-Man........A repoman is always intense.

Rumble Fish, I wonder how this rates on the John Cole movie scale I've heard about. Incredible imagery, clocks without hands, the constant ticking noises in the soundtrack.
The soundtrack is by Stewart Copeland and is awesome.
Great perfomances all around.


Tim

[John Cole]

TJ,

I'll take One From the Heart over Rumble Fish, but Rumble does have nice moments. But you can't beat Heart's soundtrack, composed by Tom Waits and sung by Waits and Crystal Gayle. It's wonderful and better than the movie, which, by the way, many people dislike.

[Bubbagump]

Jacobs Ladder
Angel Heart

[sfer]

Alright Andy, you got me. I'm getting the book. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Did I mention how funny the movie is?

What happened to your finger?
Oh, a parrot bit me.

That sounds like a cheap novelette.
Well I write cheap novelettes!

[Rushmore]

Hey. I saw your OT post at WPT forum.

[ QUOTE ]
This technique was used every time they shot-up. I loved it because it enables the viewer to really get a feel for just how often they were getting high

[/ QUOTE ]

The point of this is to show how often they were fixing, but also to minimize the importance of what becomes, for a junkie, a mundane and commonplace act. Nuff said.

The sex scene at the end is heavily cut, which is a shame, because the uncut version really shows true degradation. Otherwise, I think they may have cut a little bit of the arm wound, but otherwise, I can't really remember much that might have cut.

If you haven't seen Pi, you really oughta.

Oh, yea--also, this entire conversation just reminded me of a very good movie that nobody ever heard of about speed freaks called Spun. This movie is excellent, really.

Keep the faith. Someone might make a good film again sometime soon.

[Rushmore]

You really must. It's creepy in every sense of the word.

Watchable? Well, that's another story.

Maybe.

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, it's really "deep"--like Camus! The photography is rather cool, sure, but even that wears and begins to smell of affectation.

[/ QUOTE ]

How could it not??! I still think it's pretty to look at, and not an actual affront to anything in particular.

[John Cole]

BTW, the line DeNiro says at the end of Angel Heart, "What good is knowledge of the truth when it brings no relief," comes straight from Oedipus Rex, which is the story Angel Heart retells.

[elwoodblues]

Has anyone seen Bubba Ho-Tep yet? I haven't yet seen it, but plan on it based on the positive reviews I've read and the plot (summarized below care of the Internet Movie Database):


[ QUOTE ]
Based on the Bram Stoker Award nominee short story by cult author Joe R. Lansdale, Bubba Ho-tep tells the "true" story of what really did become of Elvis Presley. We find Elvis (Bruce Campbell) as an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his "death", then missed his chance to switch back. Elvis teams up with Jack (Ossie Davis), a fellow nursing home resident who thinks that he is actually President John F. Kennedy, and the two valiant old codgers sally forth to battle an evil Egyptian entity who has chosen their long-term care facility as his happy hunting grounds

[/ QUOTE ]

[dsm]

(n/m) = no message

[WTF]

"The Illustrated Man" staring Rod Steiger isn't a masterpiece, or even great, but it is a film that is worth seeing.

[Rod Steiger was offered the title role in the movie, "Patton," but refused it, saying "I'm not going to glorify war." The role was then given to George C. Scott, who won the Oscar for it. Steiger calls this refusal his "dumbest career move."]